astronomy

I just rewatched Ridley Scott's "Prometheus," and I think the soundtrack's opening horn melody would go perfectly with this NASA pic.

The Hubble Space Telescope has photographed the Horsehead Nebula in stunning detail. The nebula, about 1,500 light years away in the constellation of Orion, was imaged in infrared wavelengths against the backdrop of the Milky Way.

The pink cast is from hydrogen gas behind the nebula, which is being lit up by Sigma Orionis, a five-star system. … Read more

If you love eye-popping images of space, here's welcome news: the Hawaiian Board of Land and Natural Resources has backed building what's to be the world's largest, most powerful optical telescope above the clouds atop the volcano Mauna Kea.

The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will have a primary mirror of 492 segments measuring some 100 feet across, giving it the power to image objects 13 billion light years away, near the beginning of the universe.

It may also photograph planets outside our solar system with unprecedented detail. … Read more

HANOVER, Germany -- IBM is trying to advance supercomputing technology in processing, optical communications, and memory in conjunction with an international project to peer at the Big Bang's radio remnants.

The radio telescope, called the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), will be built from 2016 to 2024 in southern Africa and Australia. Before that, though, IBM is working to develop the necessary computing technology through a five-year partnership with the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (Astron). At the CeBIT show here, the two groups are showing off some of the fruits of the cooperation, called Dome.

The idea is to … Read more

Aside from giant laser beams, can eyes in the sky help save us from asteroid hits?

Canada thinks so, and it has launched a space telescope to track hazardous objects including asteroids, space junk, and satellites.

The Near-Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat) was launched from an Indian rocket this week as the first dedicated space-based sentinel of its kind.

Managed by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC), NEOSSat is about the size of a suitcase and orbits some 500 miles above Earth, circling every 100 minutes. … Read more

Google is invoking the name Copernicus again, but this time it's not a joke.

The Web giant is celebrating with a doodle the 540th birthday of the Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who challenged the way people look at the universe. Nicolaus Copernicus, who was born in 1473, is perhaps best known for his heliocentric theory, which asserted that the sun, and not the Earth, was at the center of the universe.

The doodle is a representation of Copernicus' model for the solar system -- a golden sun encircled by six planets on stylized plane.

In an effort to improve … Read more

How well do you know the geography of the moon? This weekend brings a great chance for you to brush up on your lunar knowledge.

Starry Night Education points out that when the moon rises each night this weekend, we Earthlings can view a great angle of these jumbo lunar craters: Plato, Archimedes, Copernicus, Ptolemaeus, and Clavius. … Read more

Did you miss out on this year's keen Orionid meteor shower or the super perigee moon? Don't fret, as a mega meteor shower this Thursday evening could appease those craving an extraterrestrial event.

Set your alarm for 11 p.m. ET on Thursday, as that's when the Geminid meteor shower peaks. It could deliver dozens (or even hundreds) of visible meteors per hour until about 3 a.m. on December 14. Keep your eyes (and scopes) toward the constellation Gemini for the best view of the shiny shower. … Read more

Did you miss out on the total solar eclipse yesterday?

Take a look at our breathtaking gallery that features pictures of the total (and partial) solar eclipse from the northern tip of Australia, various island countries in the South Pacific, and near Chile.… Read more

It's only 42 light years away, it could have liquid water, and it's more than seven times bigger than our planet (in mass). So once we destroy this one, we're all set.

This latest super-Earth is called HD 40307g. It may sound like a tax form, but it's almost guaranteed to be paradise. It's right in a sweet spot orbit around HD 40307, a smaller star than the sun in the constellation of Pictor, where liquid water is possible. And the IRS can't reach you.

Three exoplanets were already known to orbit the star from observations up to 2008 but they are likely too close for liquid water. A new study of the data by researchers at the University of Hertfordshire in Britain revealed an additional three planets, with the farthest about as far from the star as Venus is to our sun. … Read more